Adhesions accompanying the healing of wounds, whether due to surgery or other trauma, give rise to many disadvantageous effects. For example, peritoneal cavity adhesions lead to intestinal obstruction and necessitate recurring operations. Furthermore, unwanted adhesions themselves pose problems during recurrent operations. For example, tendon adhesions often compromise tendon surgery and repair. Clearly, it would be extremely advantageous to find a suitable material that could function as an insulator material isolating wound repair sites from adhesions whether between layers of abdominal and thoracic walls, between repair sites within the abdomen or thorax, within the hand, wrist, foot, ankle, and other joints or between the skin and body stroma. However, such a material would have to satisfy many prerequisites. For example, it would be necessary that such a material would match the compliance of the soft tissue site of application. The material would also need to be biodegradable and be obtainable in different forms, such as elastomeric sheets, foams or powders, that would provide sufficient ease of handling for each particular application. Of course, such a material would also have to be readily sterilizable as well as being biocompatible and eliciting insignificant immunogenic and antigenic responses in the host.
The same properties described above would also be advantageous in a material for the protection of burn areas and to facilitate repair of the damaged tissue.
At present, a material which fully meets all of the above requirements is unknown.